Oh my. I expect this to be a long drawn out thread. RMS is the right answer buttttt- there is much hype, misdirection, and dowright falshood on the part of advertisers. Even if you read the specs carefully and know what to look for, one can be misled on this subject. Best corse to follow is to buy from reptuable manufactures, with respected names, who will most likely quote RMS, with a specific signal input, at a specific load, for a specific leignth of time. Dont even get me started on car amp specs.

Apart from a 1970s(?) misleading standard, there is no such thing as RMS watts. What people often mean is the power you calculate from RMS volts or current: this gives average power. Peak power for a sine wave is twice this.

For amplifiers there may be extra confusion because an unregulated supply may mean thet a short tone burst or transient can have more power than a continuous signal. All this means that 'peak power' could be up to about 4 times the continuous average power. A reputable manufacturer will say exactly what their number means.

Sorry I don't mean this to become some long drawn out debate now am I saying watts is everything. I'm just in the market for a pro amp and want to compare power to my receiver. For example, my current receiver, a Denon AVR 890 claims 105W per chanel. I'm looking at a QSC 850 which is 200W per channel (into 8 ohms). Just wondering if they are measuring power the same way and if I can really expect double the power from the QSC. Right now my speakers are rated 110W nominal and despite the AVR890's claim of 105W it seems kind of weak for my speakers.

Apart from a 1970s(?) misleading standard, there is no such thing as RMS watts. What people often mean is the power you calculate from RMS volts or current: this gives average power. Peak power for a sine wave is twice this.

For amplifiers there may be extra confusion because an unregulated supply may mean thet a short tone burst or transient can have more power than a continuous signal. All this means that 'peak power' could be up to about 4 times the continuous average power. A reputable manufacturer will say exactly what their number means.

The voice of reason, obviously, but a voice in the wilderness and a lost cause, I fear.

It soooh obvious that the product of two rms quantities must also yield an rms quantity.

If 100W is not enough, then 200W won't be much better. You will only just hear the difference. You can assume that home entertainment equipment will misleadingly overstate output power, but stay (just) within the bounds of honesty.

My system has about 20 genuine watts per channel and is plenty loud enough.